Introduction

GUYANA AND BELIZE belie their geographic location. Although both are
located on the mainland of the Americas, they more closely resemble the
English-speaking islands of the Caribbean than they do their Latin
American neighbors. Christopher Columbus passed near the coasts of both
countries, but later Spanish explorers and settlers ignored the areas
because they lacked the mineral riches that brought the Spanish to the
New World. The wealth of both areas would prove to be not gold but
agriculture. By the end of the eighteenth century, the indigenous
populations of both regions had been greatly reduced or driven to remote
areas, and the coastal lands held growing populations of British or
Dutch plantation owners. Plantation work was labor intensive, and
initially African slaves, then other ethnic groups, were imported to
work the land. As the colonies expanded economically, Britain claimed
formal sovereignty, but title to each colony remained contested.

The twentieth century saw a shift in political power from the old
plantocracy to a new nonwhite middle class, a rising self- consciousness
among the various ethnic groups, and a slow evolution toward
independence. Formal ties to Britain eventually were broken, but, like
their anglophone Caribbean neighbors, Guyana and Belize today still
strongly bear the mark of their colonial heritage. They retain their
British institutions, their use of the English language, their economies
based on agriculture, and their societies composed of a complex ethnic
mix often divided along racial lines.

Unlike the great civilizations of Middle America that left monuments
and records for archaeologists to decipher, the early societies in
Guyana were relatively simple, nomadic cultures that left few traces.
Early Spanish records and linguistic studies of the Caribbean reveal
only a broad outline of pre-Columbian events. We do know that several
centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, the Arawak moved north
from Brazil to settle and farm the area along the northeast coast of
South America before expanding farther north onto the Caribbean islands.
Shortly before the arrival of the Europeans, the aggressive, warlike
Carib pushed into the area and largely destroyed Arawak society.

Because of the warlike Carib and the region's apparent lack of gold
or silver, the Spanish ignored the northeastern coast of South America.
Settlement by Europeans would wait until 1616, when a group of Dutch
arrived to establish a trading post. The Dutch soon realized the
agricultural potential of the swampy coastal land and aggressively set
out to drain the coast using a vast system of seawalls, dikes and
canals. What had been swampy wasteland decades before, soon turned into
thriving sugar plantations.

The development of agriculture brought rapid change to the colony.
Because the plantation economy needed labor, the Dutch imported African
slaves for the task. The growing economy also attracted the attention of
the British, and British settlers from neighboring Caribbean islands
poured into the three Dutch colonies established along the coast. By the
late 1700s, the new British settlers effectively controlled the
colonies. Formal control by Britain would come in 1814, when most Dutch
colonies were ceded to Britain after the Napoleonic wars.

In 1838 Britain completed the abolition of slavery throughout the
British Empire, and the problem of obtaining cheap and plentiful labor
arose anew. The planters first sought to attract Portuguese, then
Chinese, workers, but both groups soon left plantation work. Concerned
that the decline in labor would ruin the sugar-based economy, the
planters finally contracted laborers from India to work the sugar
fields. Large numbers of indentured workers poured into British Guiana
in the late 1800s. Although theoretically free to return after their
contract period had expired, most East Indians remained, adding a new
ethnic group to the colony's mélange of Africans, Europeans, and
Amerindians.

The twentieth century saw a rising consciousness among the country's
ethnic groups and a struggle for political power between the new,
disenfranchised, nonwhite middle class and the old plantocracy. Economic
changes gave momentum to the growing call for political changes. The
country saw rice production, dominated by the Indo-Guyanese (descendants
of East Indians), and bauxite mining, dominated by the Afro-Guyanese
(descendants of Africans), grow in importance, whereas sugar growing,
controlled by the European plantation owners, declined. The British
colonial administration responded to demands for reform by establishing
universal suffrage in 1950 and allowing the formation of political
parties.

The People's Progressive Party (PPP), the country's first political
party, quickly became a formidable force. The PPP was formed by two men
who would dominate Guyanese politics for decades to come: Cheddi Jagan,
a Marxist Indo-Guyanese, and Linden Forbes Burnham, an Afro-Guyanese
with leftist political ideas. A new constitution allowing considerable
self-rule was promulgated in 1953; in elections that year the PPP,
headed by Jagan, won a majority of seats in the new legislature. The new
administration immediately sought legislation giving the labor unions
expanded power. This legislation and the administration's leftist
rhetoric frightened the British colonial authorities, who suspended the
new government after only four months.

Conflict with the British was not the only problem facing the PPP.
Personal rivalries between Jagan and Burnham and growing conflict
between the Indo-Guyanese and the Afro-Guyanese widened into an open
split. In 1957 Burnham and most of the Afro-Guyanese left the PPP and
formed the rival People's National Congress (PNC). The two parties
shared left-wing ideologies; the differences between them were largely
based on ethnicity.

The British promulgated a new constitution in 1957. Elections in that
year and in 1961 resulted in more PPP victories. Under the new
constitution, considerable power resided in the hands of the governor,
who was appointed by the British. The PPP administration headed by Jagan
was therefore unable to implement most of its radical policy
initiatives. The Marxist rhetoric, however, intensified.

Convinced that independence under a PPP administration would result
in a communist takeover, the British authorities permitted and even
encouraged a destabilization campaign by the opposition PNC.
Antigovernment demonstrations and riots increased and in 1963 mobs
destroyed parts of Georgetown, the capital. When labor unrest paralyzed
the economy, British troops were called in to restore order. In the
midst of the unrest the government scheduled new elections in 1964.

Voting along ethnic lines again gave the PPP the largest number of
seats in the legislature. But the rival PNC, by allying itself with a
small business-oriented party, was able to form a coalition government.
Jagan had to be forcibly removed as prime minister, and in December 1964
Burnham assumed the post. Under the new administration, events
stabilized, and independence was set for May 26, 1966.

The independent Guyana inherited by the PNC was one of the
least-populated and least-developed countries in South America. Located
on the northeast coast of the continent just north of the equator, the
Idaho-sized country is wedged among Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname
(former Dutch Guiana). More than 90 percent of the population lives
within five or six kilometers of the sea. This coastal plain,
constituting only 5 percent of the country's total area, was originally
low swampland but was transformed by the Dutch into the country's most
productive agricultural land. Inland from the coastal plain lies the
white-sand belt, site of most of Guyana's mineral wealth of bauxite,
gold, and diamonds. Farther inland are the interior highlands,
consisting of largely uninhabited mountains and savannahs.

Guyana's ethnic mix at independence, still the same in 1993,
consisted primarily of Indo-Guyanese--about half the population-- and
Afro-Guyanese--slightly more than 40 percent of the total. Smaller
numbers of Amerindians, Asians, and Europeans completed Guyana's ethnic
mélange. More than two-thirds of the population was Christian, with
significant Hindu and Muslim minorities. Established by the British, the
school system has resulted in high literacy rates (more than 90
percent).

The small military, the Guyana Defence Force, existed primarily as a
deterrent to Venezuela's territorial claim. Venezuela's claim to the
western three-fifths of Guyana, a dispute that dated from the colonial
era, was thought to have been settled by arbitration in 1899. When later
evidence showed that one of the judges had been influenced to vote
against Venezuela, that country declared the arbitration settlement
invalid and in the 1960s aggressively pursued its territorial claim on
western Guyana. This border dispute was to flare periodically after
Guyana's independence.

The first years of PNC administration after independence saw Prime
Minister Burnham vigorously establishing control over Guyana's political
and economic life. The 1968 elections were won by the PNC, despite
charges of widespread fraud and coercion of voters. As the government's
control over the country's political institutions increased, Burnham
began nationalizing industries and financial institutions. In 1970
Guyana was declared a "cooperative republic," and government
control of all economic activity increased. The 1973 elections were
considered the most undemocratic in Guyana's history, and by 1974 all
organs of the state had become agencies of the ruling PNC.

In the late 1970s, a number of events increased opposition to the
Burnham regime. The economy, which had grown immediately after
independence, began to contract because of nationalization. In addition,
in 1978 negative international attention was focused on Guyana when more
than 900 members of the People's Temple of Christ led by Jim Jones
committed mass murder and suicide at their community in western Guyana.
As opposition to the government increased, the government responded by
violence against opposition members and meetings. The authoritarian
nature of the Burnham government caused the loss of both foreign and
domestic supporters.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1980, shifting power from the
prime minister to the new post of executive president, but the political
and economic situation continued to decline. Government programs had
been financed by increasing the foreign debt, but in the early 1980s,
most foreign banks and lending organizations refused further loans. The
quality of life deteriorated: blackouts were frequent, and shortages of
rice and sugar, Guyana's two largest crops, appeared. In 1985 in the
midst of this turbulence, Burnham died while undergoing throat surgery.

Vice President Hugh Desmond Hoyte became the country's new executive
president. He had two stated goals: to secure political power and
revitalize the economy. Establishing political control was easy. The PNC
chose Hoyte as its new leader, and in the 1985 elections the PNC claimed
more than 79 percent of the vote. Economic growth, however, would
require concessions to foreign lenders. Hoyte therefore began to
restructure the economy. An economic recovery plan was negotiated with
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank allowing for new
loans in exchange for free-market reforms and reversal of the Burnham
administration's nationalization policies. To win favor with Western
governments and financial institutions, Hoyte also moderated the
previous administration's leftist tilt in international relations.

The results of economic reform were slow to appear, but by 1990 the
economy began to grow again. The last legitimate date for new elections
was December 1990. Sensing, however, that the PNC might be able to win a
fair election (and thus regain a measure of international respect) if
the economy continued to improve, the government invoked a clause in the
constitution allowing elections to be postponed a year. Seeing a chance
for an honest election, a group of Guyanese civic leaders created the
Elections Assistance Board (EAB) to monitor the upcoming elections. The
EAB appealed to the Carter Center in Atlanta for international support
in its effort.

Despite threats and intimidation, in July 1991 the EAB conducted a
door-to-door survey to verify voter lists. When the lists were shown to
be grossly inaccurate, the Hoyte administration, under pressure from the
EAB and the international community, declared a state of emergency and
agreed to postpone the elections until October 1992 and implement a
series of reforms suggested by the Carter Center. The reforms included
appointment of a new election commissioner and agreement that the
ballots be counted at polling centers in view of poll watchers instead
of being taken to government centers and army bases for tallying.

The election date was finally set for October 5, 1992. Hoyte based
the PNC campaign on the improving economy, which he credited to his
free-market reforms. The PPP, still headed by Jagan after forty-two
years, renounced its past Marxist policies and embraced elements of a
free-market economy. In a reversal of decades of racial politics, Jagan
attempted to downplay the country's ethnic polarization by naming an
Afro-Guyanese, Sam Hinds, as his running mate.

Monitored by an international team of observers headed by United
States former President Jimmy Carter, election results gave an alliance
of the PPP, the smaller Working People's Alliance (WPA), and the United
Force (UF) 54 percent of the vote, and the PNC, 45 percent. These
results translated into thirty-two seats in the National Assembly for
the PPP, thirty-one seats for the PNC, and one apiece for the WPA and
the UF. Foreign observers certified the elections as "free, fair,
and transparent." The PNC conceded defeat on October 7 and, after
twenty-eight years, stepped down from power. Following brief
consultations, the PPP formed a coalition government with the WPA and
the UF (named the PPP-Civic coalition) and named Jagan executive
president.

Two days of rioting and looting in Georgetown and Linden in eastern
Guyana followed announcement of the election results. By the time the
army and police restored order, 2 demonstrators had been killed and more
than 200 injured. Many analysts attributed the violence to the fear that
a PPP government would mean fewer economic benefits for the
Afro-Guyanese population. Former President Carter, however, stated that
the violence was localized and the looting unrelated to the voting.

In a radio broadcast on October 13, Jagan outlined the direction of
the new government. He stated his intention to build a political
consensus that cut across ethnic lines and to continue the privatization
policies of his predecessor. Analysts speculated that the new
administration would have difficulty in getting measures approved by the
National Assembly and would face strong opposition from the
PNC-dominated military and civil service. Election observers noted also
the need to lower racial tension in a society that some characterized as
one of the most racially divided they had witnessed. The motto on the
Guyanese coat of arms proudly proclaims "one people, one nation,
one destiny." In 1993, however, this motto remained a distant goal.

The history of preindependence Belize parallels in many ways the
history of Guyana. Unlike the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Guyana,
however, the Maya in Belize left majestic ruins of their civilization.
Remains of the earliest settlers of the area date back at least to 2500
B.C. By 250 A.D. the classic period of Maya culture had begun; this
period of city-building lasted for more than 700 years. During this
time, the Maya built big ceremonial centers, practiced large-scale
agriculture using irrigation, and developed writing and a sophisticated
calendar. Around the tenth century, evidence suggests that the great
cities were abandoned, perhaps because of increased warfare among the
city-states, revolt of the peasants against the priestly class,
overexploitation of the environment, or a combination of these and other
factors. Even though the great ceremonial centers were left to decay,
the Maya continued to inhabit the region until the arrival of the
Europeans.

The first European settlers in the area were not Spanish but English.
Although Christopher Columbus passed through the area on his fourth
voyage to the Americas in 1502, Spanish explorers and settlers ignored
the region because it lacked gold. English pirates roaming the Caribbean
in the seventeenth century began establishing small camps near the
Belize River to cut logwood, from which a black dye was extracted.
Logwood extraction proved more profitable than piracy, and the English
settlements on the Caribbean coast grew.

The Spanish sent expeditions throughout the eighteenth century to
dislodge the British settlers. The British were repeatedly forced to
evacuate but returned shortly after each attack. Several treaties in the
late 1700s recognized the British settlers' right to extract logwood but
confirmed Spanish sovereignty over the region, a concession that later
would lead to a territorial dispute.

The colony continued to grow throughout the nineteenth century.
Logwood extraction was replaced by mahogany cutting as the settlement's
principal economic activity, and slaves were introduced to increase
production. By the time emancipation was completed in 1838, the
settlement had evolved into a plantation society with a small number of
European landowners and a large population of slaves from Africa.

In the nineteenth century, the colony was also a magnet for
dispossessed groups throughout the region. The Garifuna, an Afro-indigenous people descended from the Carib
Indians and slaves of the Eastern Caribbean, found refuge in the area in
the early 1800s. In the mid- and late 1800s, large numbers of Maya, many
of whom had intermarried with or become culturally assimilated to the
Spanish-speaking population of Central America, fled fighting in the
Yucatán or forced labor in Guatemala and settled in the colony.

The nineteenth century also saw the development of formal government.
As early as 1765, a common law system for the settlers was formalized,
and a superintendent was named in 1794. A rudimentary legislature began
meeting in the early 1800s, and in 1854 the British produced a
constitution and formally established the colony of British Honduras in
1862. Political power in the colony remained firmly in the hands of the
old settler elite, however; blacks working the plantations were
disenfranchised, and smaller populations of smallholder Garifuna and
Maya lived on the periphery of society.

The early 1900s were a period of political and social change.
Nonwhite groups, particularly an emerging black middle class, began to
agitate for the vote and political power. Mahogany production slowed,
and the colony began to depend on sugar for revenue. Additional
immigrants from neighboring Spanish-speaking countries drifted in and
settled among the rural Maya. Creoles, as the English-speaking blacks called themselves, began
to participate in colonial politics.

The Great Depression of the 1930s greatly accelerated the pace of
change. Mahogany exports virtually collapsed, and the colonial officials
responded with measures designed primarily to protect the interests of
the plantation owners. As a result, widespread labor disturbances broke
out. Pressured by persistent labor unrest, the government eventually
legalized trade unions in 1941. The unions soon broadened their demands
to include political reform, and in 1950 the first and most durable
political party, the People's United Party (PUP), was formed with strong
backing from the labor movement. Universal suffrage was granted to
literate adults in 1954, and by the 1960s the colony was being prepared
for independence.

The final obstacle to independence proved to be not internal problems
or resistance from the colonial power, but an unresolved territorial
claim over all of Belize by neighboring Guatemala. The dispute dated to
treaties signed in the 1700s, in which Britain agreed to Spanish
sovereignty over the region. Guatemala later claimed it had inherited
Spanish sovereignty over Belize. Although negotiations over the issue
had occurred periodically for more than a century, the matter of
sovereignty became a particularly important issue for Guatemala in the
1960s and 1970s, when it realized Britain might grant independence to
Belize.

Guatemala's demand for annexation of Belize was largely fought in the
international area. Realizing that Belize's small defense force of 700
was no match for Guatemala's army, the British stationed a garrison
force to deter any aggression. Belize sought support for sovereignty
from the United Nations, the Nonaligned Movement, the Commonwealth of
Nations, and the Organization of American States. First, individual
states and then the international organizations themselves came to
support Belize's cause. By 1980 Guatemala was completely without
international support for its territorial claim, and the British granted
Belize independence in 1981.

Belize at independence was a small country whose economy depended on
one crop. Unlike many other newly emerging nations, however, Belize was
underpopulated in the early 1990s. The country, approximately the size
of Massachusetts, consists largely of tropical forest, flat in the north
and with a low range of mountains in the south. Belize has traditionally
depended on one crop (forest products in the 1700s and 1800s; sugar in
the mid- 1900s) for its economic livelihood. A collapse in the price of
sugar in the 1980s forced the government to diversify the economy. The
growth of tourism and increased citrus and banana production in the
1990s made the economy less vulnerable to the price swings of a single
commodity.

Ethnic diversity characterized Belizean society. The two largest
groups were the Creoles, an English-speaking group either partly or
wholly of African descent, and the Hispanic descendants of immigrants
from neighboring Spanish-speaking countries or Hispanicized indigenous
groups called Mestizos. Smaller groups included the Garifuna and the various
Maya peoples. The 1980 census showed the population to be about 40
percent Creole and 33 percent Mestizo. A considerable of influx of
people from Central America shifted these percentages, however, so that
the 1991 census showed the Mestizos to be the larger group, a change
that distanced the country from the anglophone Caribbean and made it
increasingly resemble its Hispanic neighbors on the isthmus of Central
America.

The British legacy included a parliamentary democracy based on the
British model, a government headed by the British monarch but governed
by a prime minister named by the lower house of the bicameral
legislature, and an independent judiciary. The constitutional safeguards
for citizens' rights were respected, and the two elections since
independence had seen power alternate between the country's two
political parties with an absence of irregularities or political
violence. The last election in 1989 saw George Cadle Price, leader of
the PUP, regain the position of prime minister, a post he had held at
the time of independence.

In 1993 Belize faced a number of challenges. The nation endeavored to
meet the needs of a growing population with only limited resources. The
makeup of the population itself was changing as Belizeans became more
like their Central American neighbors and less like the English-speaking
Caribbean. Most analysts agreed, however, that as the twentieth century
drew to a close, Belize seemed well-positioned to deal successfully with
the economic and social changes confronting it.

March 3, 1993

* * *

In the months following completion of research and writing of this
book, significant political developments occurred in Belize. On May 13,
1993, the British government, saying that it felt its military presence
in Belize was no longer necessary because resolution of Guatemala's
long-standing territorial claim seemed imminent, announced that it would
remove most of its troops from Belize within a year. On June 1, buoyed
by overwhelming victories in by-elections for the Belize City Council
and for a vacated parliamentary seat, Prime Minister George Price called
for the governor general to dissolve the National Assembly on June 30
and hold general elections the following day, fifteen months before the
mandate of his People's United Party (PUP) was due to expire. The main
opposition party, the United Democratic Party (UDP) headed by Manuel
Esquivel, and the newly formed National Alliance for Belizean Rights
headed by veteran UDP politician Philip Goldson announced they would
participate in the election. The PUP was confident of victory because
the economy was growing and the opposition appeared disorganized. The
PUP also claimed that recently passed legislation giving Guatemala
access to the Caribbean through Belizean territorial waters had finally
settled the dispute with Guatemala.

Events in neighboring Guatemala, however, came to dominate the issues
in the Belizean election. On June 2, the Guatemalan military removed
President Jorge Serrano Elías, who had earlier accepted Belize's right
to exist and established diplomatic relations with Belize. Later in
June, the Guatemalan military announced plans to impeach Serrano in
absentia for his accord with Belize.

In its election campaign, the UDP seized on many Belizeans' fears of
renewed Guatemalan territorial claims, the consequence of the British
troop withdrawal, and resentment by Creoles over the growing
hispanicization of the country. Esquivel accused Price's administration
of making too many concessions to Guatemala to obtain a settlement to
the dispute and promised to suspend the legislation granting Guatemala
access to the Caribbean. The UDP also charged that the PUP had not
fought hard enough to keep the British garrison in Belize and promised
to reopen talks to maintain a British presence if it were brought to
power. In addition, the UDP accused the PUP of having allowed too many
Spanish-speaking refugees into Belize (the 1991 census revealed that for
the first time there were more Mestizos than Creoles in the country) and
then catering to the Spanish-speaking vote.

These campaign charges, along with attacks on the PUP as being
corrupt and secretly planning to devalue the Belizean dollar, resulted
in a surprise victory for the UDP on July 1. Although the PUP won a slim
majority of the total votes cast, the UDP won sixteen of the twenty-nine
seats in the National Assembly. The UDP victory for several seats was
razor-thin (six of the seats were won with a majority of five or fewer
votes) and several recounts were held. Results of the sixteen-seat
victory for the UDP were confirmed, however, and on July 5, Manuel
Esquivel was sworn in as Belize's new prime minister.